Find Me
by KennDemon
Summary: "Papa, tu me manques tellement."  Matthew, invisible to everyone around him, longs for the one person who has ever noticed him. But that person is gone, and Matthew doesn't think he'll ever find nyone else who will see him.  Or will he?
1. Chapter 1

Matthew hummed slightly to himself as he poured pancake batter into the pan. Like every morning, he had gotten up first, rising pretty much at the same time as the sun. He liked to get up and make breakfast for the rest of his family. It was something that made him feel useful.

"No way! Superman is, like, a million times better than Batman!" The loud declaration announced Matthew's brother, Alfred's, arrival in the kitchen. Even though it was barely seven in the morning, he was already on the phone with one of his many friends.

"Good mor-" Matthew began.

He was cut off by a stifled scream. Turning around quickly, Matthew saw Alfred staring at him in fear. The other boy was holding his cell phone slightly away from his ear, and Matthew could hear loud, worried sounds coming from it. Then Alfred shakily returned the phone to his ear. "Kiku." He said in a small voice that was very unlike him. "It happened again."

Matthew turned back to what he was doing, fighting tears. This happened every morning. Nobody ever noticed him, as if he was invisible. He had yet to make any friends at school because of this, and sometimes he wondered why he even went. If his own brother couldn't see him, it was a given that his teachers couldn't either.

Biting his lower lip to keep from letting out a sob, Matthew flipped the pancake in the pan.

"Ahh!" Alfred screamed, and Matthew heard his fast footsteps running from the room. "It's right there." He hissed into his phone. "It's at the stove, cooking as we speak."

As best he could, Matthew blocked out what his brother was saying. He put the empty bowl of batter in the sink and ran the water, putting the pan with it once he had removed the food. Then he got the syrup from the fridge and placed it with the large plate of pancakes on the table. Finally, before retreating to his bedroom, he set the table for three, a spot for each of his parents and his brother.

* * *

><p>"Ngh..." Matthew grit his teeth as the cold metal slid across his skin. Then he watched as blood seeped from the cut. For a split second he wondered about letting it drip onto the carpeted floor of his room before he sighed and reached for a tissue. Leaving a stain wouldn't accomplish anything.<p>

Bandaging the cut properly, Matthew looked at the scars from previous mornings. His arms were covered with them, and he knew, if he lifted his shirt, he would see more just above his hip. There were so many little marks that Matthew had stopped keeping track of the number over a year ago.

Matthew turned to where he had draped his red sweatshirt. _What would happen if I didn't wear it?_ He wondered for a moment. _Would anyone notice the scars?_ That would involve them noticing him. Maybe he should leave the sweatshirt at home, let the world at Hetalia Secondary School know what he had been driven to.

"Alfred!" Mathew's dad, Arthur's voice cut through his thoughts. "You're going to be late for school!" He shouted in his thick British accent.

Matthew grabbed his sweatshirt off his chair and quickly crammed it over his head. Then he grabbed his backpack and dashed out of his room.

"Get going!" Arthur said angrily, pushing Alfred out the door. "If you're bloody late again, it won't matter how many times you make breakfast, you'll be in a heap of trouble!"

"Yeah, yeah." Alfred waved off the threat as he stepped out the door.

Matthew slipped out behind him quickly and hurried after him. He didn't walk directly behind his brother, not wanting to freak him out if he (by some miracle) heard his footsteps and turned around. Because of this, when Alfred slipped into his first class just as the bell went, Matthew walked in late.

But it didn't matter, because nobody saw him.


	2. Chapter 2

_'With glowing hearts we see thee rise, The True North strong and free!'_ Matthew quietly hummed the national anthem of his home land as he sketched on a piece of notebook paper. The rest of the class was taking a test (that the teacher had not handed to him), so he was trying to be as quiet as possible out of courtesy. _'From far and wide, O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.'_

Matthew looked at the picture taking form in front of him. It was a small polar bear cub sitting at the top of a snow drift. The cub was staring out at an expanse of snow and ice, with the ocean in the distance. Matthew quickly wrote 'God keep our land glorious and free!' at the bottom of the picture.

Then he put his pencil down and smiled at the picture. He liked to draw, even if he wasn't the best at it. Sketching scenes from nature, especially from his previous home in Canada, made him feel a little better.

With the picture complete, Matthew just sat there. While staring at the snowy scene, he let his mind wander. He thought about his home, the small cabin he had lived in before coming to the states. He didn't remember much about living there, since he had moved when he was very little, but he did remember that he had felt in place, in place and visible.

That, and he remembered his papa.

Matthew had been adopted by Arthur when he was really young. He had never been told why he had to be adopted, so he didn't know what had happened to his papa, a smooth talking Frenchman. Now that he was older, he guessed that his papa must have died, since he had never heard from him after being adopted.

_No!_ Matthew shook his head. Thinking about his papa made him even more depressed than he already was. As the bell rang to end the class, he picked up the paper in front of him and started to crumple it.

"Hey!" Someone suddenly shouted from behind him, making Matthew jump in his seat.

He slowly turned to see what had happened. The shout had come from so close to him that he was worried about being in danger. If it was the start of a fight, he didn't want someone to get pushed into him.

But there was no altercation. Instead, Matthew found himself staring into a pair of blood red eyes. The owner of those eyes, a tall boy with white-silver hair, was looking at him with an almost smile. Matthew was unnerved by the feeling that the boy was looking _at_ him instead of _through_ him.

"Don't do that." The boy said, reaching past Matthew and removing the crumpled paper from his hands. Then he proceeded to un-crumple it. "Something as this cool doesn't deserve crumpling." He said, staring to laugh. "This drawing is almost as awesome as me, and we all know that's saying something."

Matthew just stared at the boy. He didn't know what to do, since the last time he had spoken with someone had been nearly three years ago. He had no way of knowing what the boy was talking about, and even if it was good or bad.

The boy looked away from the drawing and at Matthew again with a slight frown. "Hey." He leaned over Matthew's shoulder, spreading the paper out on his desk. "What's this line?" He asked, pointing at the words bellow the bear.

When Matthew looked at the words, he realized that he had written them in French. He quickly covered the paper with his arms, hiding the word's from anyone's view.

"Is it a secret language?" The boy asked, still leaning over his shoulder. "That's pretty awesome." He rested his arms on the back of Matthew's head and leaned on him slightly. "So, who are you? I'm the awesome Gilbert."

"M-Matthew." Matthew replied quietly. His heart jumped at the sound of his own voice speaking to another human being.

And that human being had heard him.

"Well, Mattie." Gilbert said with a chuckle. "What ya said we get out of this unawesome classroom and find something to eat? "


	3. Chapter 3

That night, after making dinner and leaving it on the table for his brother and parents, Matthew sat in his room. He was staring at the drawing from earlier that day. Usually, if he killed time by sketching something, he just crumpled it up and threw it away. He knew that he wasn't anywhere near what could be called an artist, and since nobody would even notice if he put up a drawing in the house, he had no real reason to keep them.

But for some reason he wanted to hang on to this one.

"Dieu protège notre pays libre et glorieux." He whispered to himself, reading the words under the bear.

_Gilbert thought they were a secret language._ He remembered, smiling slightly. There were times when that's exactly what Matthew thought about his french. He didn't know of anyone else in town who could speak it, so it might as well have been something he made up.

"Papa, tu me manques tellement." He cried softly. Through his tears, he watched as he tore the drawing in half. He suddenly didn't want it anymore. It hurt him too much to look at the drawing, and he didn't need to be hurt anymore.

"Dad!" Matthew heard Alfred yelling from the hallway outside his room. His brother's voice sounded higher in pitch and like he was afraid. "There are strange noises coming from this room!"

Matthew cried harder. He got up from where he was sitting, stumbling over to the Canadian flag that he had hanging on his wall. He had no need for sight as he reached and hand behind it and found the small object that he had taped to the wall back there.

Pulling out the razor, he pushed up his sleeve. Then he bit his lip and ran the razor across his arm.

* * *

><p>"Good morning, Mattie!" Gilbert called loudly, slinging an arm around Matthew's shoulders.<p>

Matthew flinched away and turned to face Gilbert with a look of surprise on his face. His shoulder hurt from that morning, when Alfred had knocked him down the stairs running to the door so that he wouldn't be late. Matthew had been focusing on the pain as he walked, but now he all but forgot about it.

_He remembered me?_ He thought it disbelief, staring at Gilbert.

"Hey, didn't mean to scare you." Gilbert laughed, clapping a hand on Matthew's shoulder. When Matthew flinched again, he withdrew the hand. "Hey, what's with all the flinching?"

"Uh...um..." Matthew didn't know what to say. He looked at his feet. "Rien." He whispered.

Gilbert started laughing again. "'Rien.'" He mimicked. "You have to teach me your language. The awesome me needs a new way to annoy the unawesomeness out of my brother."

Matthew looked up at him in surprise. "You want to learn French?" His eyes grew wide. _He wants to learn French... from me?_

"French." Gilbert repeated. "Is that what you call it?" He shrugged slightly. "Sure. Yeah. Just as long as it's not too hard."

Matthew shook his head rapidly. "It's not!" For the first time in a long time, he felt his spirits starting to lift.

"Awesome." Gilbert nodded. Then they started walking down the hall together. "You can come over to my place after school." He plucked slightly at his black and white t-shirt. "I have a pool, so there's some relief from this heat."

Then Gilbert looked at Matthew and laughed. "Why are you wearing a sweatshirt in this weather anyway?"

Matthew put a hand over the cut on his wrist he had made that morning. "Uh... no reason." He muttered.


End file.
